No opinion on Mueller, but Trump didn't fire McCabe. Sessions did, following the recommendation of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility who found after their own internal review that McCabe indeed deserved to be fired.

But back to the original question, why can't Trump just fire Mueller and if things get hot under the collar start pardoning everyone and himself? Then let things get tied up in courts at least til end if his term? Sounds like a crazy questions, I know, but not too crazy compared to everything else.

Last edited by TimeTravel on Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's not crazy at all as Trump has been effectively eliminating all those who would oppose such a firing. It might even be a chance for His son-in-law to be brought back into good graces by recommending it as he did the Comey firing.

It has always been understood that in order for a democracy to perpetuate itself, everyone, including the President, has to be subject to the rule of law. A president terminating law enforcement investigations of himself directly opposes that idea. Along with separation of powers, multiple party system, the electoral college (oh well) and eventually term limitations, it was one of the ideas that was always seen as a hedge against despotism. I think the big question is how does Congress (the Republicans) respond to the firing, if it does in fact take place. If Congress doesn't protest, then Presidential behavior is only regulated by term limitations and we could enter a full blown Constitutional (principal) crisis as the "why" carries great significance - foreign intervention in our political process and not a mere cum stain (sovereignty of nations may be the most valued universally held political concept). If Congress does protest, and impeachment hearings proceed, you have a presidency mired in scandal (practical crisis). I am assuming weighing the pros and cons is the main topic of discussion of Trump's new braintrust but it goes without saying that Trump wants to Apprentice Mueller. I just can't figure out why he wouldn't. He's a drama queen, it guarantees the focus remains on himself, he loves fighting for its own sake, Melania would love him for it as it helicopters her out of her personal hell, there are no real consequences to him personally (he will never go to jail), he goes where Roy Cohn didn't even go, and it would be great for the brand. I mean how does a guy like him resist it? It's like Tiger Woods denying himself the opportunity of following up a round of golf with pancakes and a car job from a Perkins waitress.

Back up for a second. There is very strong evidence that McCabe used his position to try to influence the outcome of the election in favor of Clinton. He lied under oath, sat on evidence damaging to Clinton, and has now rightfully been terminated. You can't just ignore that because it challenges your narrative.

If the outrage is over election tampering, Russian, domestic, or otherwise, than please be consistent. There has been plentiful evidence that the Clinton machine behaved horribly this past presidential election starting with the DNC and the rigged primaries. Where is the outrage over that?

If Trump is smart he will allow Mueller years to investigate because with each passing day it becomes more of a charade. Collusion ( the original intent ) at this point seems to be off of the table and now the focus is on tampering or whatever else catches Mueller's eye. Trump is fully within his rights to terminate this investigation if it's gone off of the rails, but he had better not do it too early or it will backfire.

So after a year of investigation, Manafort has been found guilty of crimes pre-dating and to the exclusion of the Trump campaign, Flynn was found guilty of lying under oath (he's been terminated), Russians were found to have taken out Facebook ads, and what 13 Russians have been subpoenaed (good luck with that haha) for trying to influence our election. Remember, the charge was that Trump personally COLLUDED with the Russians to overthrow Clinton. Meanwhile, it has been proven that the Steel dossier heavily influenced a FISA request to spy on the Trump campaign, and was financed by the Clinton's with much of the source material coming from Russia. You can't make this shit up. Let's decipher that last sentence. Hillary Clinton's campaign, to the tune of millions, paid for opposition research which was dubious at best (remember the pissing prostitutes?) and involved meeting with Russians in Russia, was used to garner FISA warrants (plural) to spy on a private citizen running for president. And of course our fine FBI agents when they weren't fucking each other were playing politics behind the shield of their organization. Nothing to see there though because Trump is evil, right?

The thread topic posed the question as to what happens if Trump fires Mueller. I don't see how that basic question implies that "Trump is Evil and Hillary Clinton's Vagina Smells Like Freshly Baked Chocolate Cookies." It's not to say Clinton would not have found herself in the same position if she had won. If you take the question literally, without politicizing it, you can try to extrapolate what will happen whether you voted for him or not or what the background to the firing is. Its simply a matter of a sitting President terminating an investigation into his conduct and what will be the political and legal ramifications of said firing, if any.

A little bit of a rant there but context matters. Each decision has unique merits other than the lazy thinking that he will fire everyone that opposes him, although I'm sure that is a motivator too. It is harmful to generalize without the details.

He needs to let the investigation sputter out with a whimper, assuming no wrong-doing will be found. I personally believe the original charge has no merit so if I were him I would mine that gold for as long as I could, as it weakens his opposition and makes them look vindictive and foolish. Imagine someone like Waters or Pelosi having to eat crow after years of pushing a false narrative. Plus it brings out information regarding ALL of the corruption in the 2016 race, and in a way it's fulfilling his campaign promise of "draining the swamp".

If he chooses to fire Mueller before it is prudent, then he will pay a price for that. There are people out there that believe whatever he does it will be corrupt regardless but they are a lost cause, who he needs to worry about are the regular folk who need to know that he was fair in his decision assuming he fires Mueller. And I'm sure that if damaging findings are there, than Mueller will release them under threat of losing his job. I think a fair question should be about a reasonable length of time this kind of investigation should take. It's been over a year, and again no evidence of the original charge. Now if Mueller continues investigating anything and everything about Trump, then I am sure something will pop up, probably completely unrelated to Russians.

Collusion ( the original intent ) at this point seems to be off of the table and now the focus is on tampering or whatever else catches Mueller's eye.

I'm not so sure of that. You have to remember that "collusion" is not a legal term, and "treason" only applies when collaborating with a country we are at war with. (Lawyers please fact check me.)

I admit this is taking longer than I thought it would, but impeachment proceedings and the investigations beforehand often take years. Clinton and Nixon were both in their fifth year of the presidency when proceedings began. It took over a year for them to impeach Johnson before the senate acquitted him. So it may be that Mueller is waiting to construct an ironclad case (and the midterm elections) before bringing charges.

It seems very likely to me that either Clinton or Trump's campaign, having been approached by a foreign national with dirt on their opponent, would say something like, "yes, I want this public and No, I don't want to be associated with putting it out." Clinton forwarded dirt to the FBI, and Trump let Wikileaks do it. The dirt in question: Clinton nefariously, but not illegally, influenced the outcome of a primary. Trump's campaign was staffed with individuals who had been groomed as potential Russian assets.

The one thing that makes me think Mueller may yet find a smoking gun is this: why can't you get Trump to say anything negative about Putin? He is a textbook narcissist who makes up condescending nicknames for anyone who dings his reputation. Yet the entire country is calling him Putin's bitch on a daily basis on national television, and Trump will not make any moves to even make it appear that's not the case. The only way that makes sense to me is if Trump knows Putin has something on him.

I don't think he will have the guy fired. Seems like Trump either has nothing to hide, or he covered his tracks well enough he isn't worried about it. I think unless they try and hook him on some bogus perjury charge, or some unrelated charge like money laundering, He is content to let Mueller spin his wheels. The longer this nonsense goes on without results, the less the public cares. If he fires him, it looks like he is hiding something.

I'm not sure what the end game is the democrats are trying to pursue. If they get him via impeachment, or the 25th amendment Then what? Democracy continues on? Trump steps down without a fight? The millions of Americans who put him in office will take the "swamp" ousting their messiah laying down? Seems more likely that would open up a much nastier can of worms than they anticipate. Better do it at the ballot box, all other measures would cause some serious civil unrest.

In order to impeach someone, then there has to be an impeachable offense as there are rules to when and how this can apply to a president. Then Congress has to vote. I am not aware of any offense Trump has committed that would warrant such action. Impeachment is such an indulgent fantasy at the moment.

Now Mueller may have an ironclad case pending just in time for the mid-terms but I don't see people keeping their mouths shut this long and not leaking some details out. I could be wrong but I doubt Mueller has anything substantive anytime soon. We'll see here in a few months.

"It seems very likely to me that either Clinton or Trump's campaign, having been approached by a foreign national with dirt on their opponent, would say something like, "yes, I want this public and No, I don't want to be associated with putting it out." Clinton forwarded dirt to the FBI, and Trump let Wikileaks do it. The dirt in question: Clinton nefariously, but not illegally, influenced the outcome of a primary. Trump's campaign was staffed with individuals who had been groomed as potential Russian assets."

There are so many things corrupt and rotten with Clinton I don't know where to begin. I just want to point out that she didn't just forward false information to the FBI, the FBI took that unsubstantiated information and other actions and used it to derail United States citizens their due process. Some might say they "colluded" with one another to try and affect an outcome.

Trump didn't "allow" Wikileaks to publish damaging and TRUE information about Clinton as they are independent actors. Clinton wanted to kill Assange while she was Secretary of State and there is no proof that Wikileaks is operating under the guise of Russian influence. None. Furthermore, many experts claim that the information stolen from the DNC could only have occurred in house and was not a hack, Russian or otherwise. Many speculate that Seth Rich was the leaker and while I don't know if this in fact true I do believe the DNC have thrown out a false narrative to cover their tracks as they refused to turn over their servers in the investigation. I equate it to Clinton deleting 33,000 e-mails after having been ordered to turn them over. Whatever was on those emails or servers was worse than the punishment for non-compliance.

Your last point is completely anecdotal. You are perfectly entitled to your speculation but the argument falls flat. But I'll play a little bit. The Never-Trumpers who can't even say his name other than "45" and have bought into the Russian narrative are the only ones calling him Putin's bitch. Much of America is not convinced that the charges leveled against him have any merit, and a lot of the people leveling the charges are quite frankly a little looney. Furthermore, people like me see huge and wild inconsistencies in how people perceive "collusion". It's very striking that Hillary and Bill weren't investigated after receiving large sums of money from the Russians before and after the Uranium One deal was brokered in part by Hillary's vote and influence as Secretary of State. People don't pay you $500,000 for a speech and deposit millions of dollars into your "charity" for nothing.

Lastly, Trumps argument for treating the Russians and Putin with respect is a sound one as there is a lot to lose if the relationship deteriorates. It doesn't mean he's doing Putin's bidding necessarily. I mean, holy shit, he's agreed to meet with Little Rocket Man for goodness sake. I do believe he is willing to negotiate with anyone.

The Mueller investigation is potentially much bigger than collusion (and indeed, the term collusion is never mentioned in the original order). It's about the rule of law primarily, but also the serious possibility that Trump's business practices mean that a foreign power (Russia) has compromising information on him. This information could be piss tapes, but could also have to do with money laundering, gray-area investments that have gone undisclosed, prostitution, or simply the ability to show the world that Trump isn't nearly as wealthy as he claims.

The Birther conspiracy theory was made up of whole cloth-there was never any reality to it. On the other hand, it is a fact that Trump fired the FBI director, and then admitted on television that he did so because of the Russia investigation. There comparison between the birther conspiracy and the firing of the FBI director is deeply flawed.

The answer is, probably, nothing.
It seems like anything Trump may do, there is a large chunk of the american population that will find a way to rationalize and justify it.

Trump has been extremely smart and has a good feeling of what he can get away with, he often dips his toes in the water and then acts.
The amount of stuff the Republican party is willing to put up with is amazing to me (not releasing taxes, not separating himself from his businesses and hiring his family members in top advisor positions are the worst).

It is really similar to what happened in italy during the Berlusconi times: almost half the country was backing him while the rest of the world watched in a mix of amusement and disbelief.

I actually think Trump's best survival strategy is to take his chances and fire Mueller. Like you said, the party that he is listed as belonging to may just do a Pontius Pilate and try to wash their hands. The alternative is if Democrats gain control after mid-terms and the Russia investigation is still going on, slimmer survival odds.

Personally I think it's prudent to wait for the upcoming OIG report on their investigation into FBI and DOJ election machinations before jumping to any conclusions. Remember, early findings from that ongoing Horowitz investigation are what justified the McCabe firing, got Strzok kicked off of Mueller's team for blatant political bias, and called attention to the entire FISA abuse issue. Trump's best play is to wait until the inspector general exposes the politicization of the FBI and DOJ in clear and thorough terms, as for all we know the entire premise of the special counsel investigation may be discredited in the process.

If he does, the same as today (constant hysteria), except more. More Republicans attack him. Can't imagine he will at this point. He is doing public relations, which is what will matter if impeachment comes.

What is much more interesting is how far Horowitz will go in presenting all the evidence of DOJ and FBI corruption. And Sessions in prosecuting it. Apparently, he is quietly doing something. And only a tiny fraction of the OIG documents have been made public.

According to Sharyl Attkisson, Trump was attacked less for what he's done than what a potential threat he represented to corrupt law enforcement with his "drain the swamp" rhetoric. She has doubts about Horowitz as he has refused to turn over information in the case of her being spied on by Obama's government after reporting on its scandals at CBS. Even pro-Trump Fox when they interview her, don't let her say much about her case. It doesn't look good that the stonewalling continues well into the new administration.

Unaccountable agencies with the power to spy on and jail anyone, who can manufacture, hide, manipulate or destroy evidence as they please, depending on how it affects their holding onto power, seem a lot scarier than any one elected official. The more that comes out about Mueller the less credible he seems as well. Can it be a surprise that the more Trump is attacked by these entities the more support he will have?

The one thing that makes me think Mueller may yet find a smoking gun is this: why can't you get Trump to say anything negative about Putin?

Because Trump has always believed China is the biggest threat to the US, not Russia. It's one of the few positions on which he's been consistent over the last 30 years. Russia is a political adversary but China is an economic one. Trump commented a long time ago that if China could ever figure out how to harness its resources economically (including its people), it would dominate everyone. That's why Trump thinks we should be allies with Russia -- to counter China's economic 'might'. It's a common divide in DC ... Some think politics defines the hierarchy of nations, and those that do fear Russia. Others think economics define the hierarchy and they fear China.